Category Archives: women in journalism

A former student of mine who is a student at Swarthmore, has been sharing this column from the Swarthmore student paper on Facebook. It’s written under a pseudonym–read it and you’ll see why–and it is a great example of column writing that strikes a balance between being personal and vulnerable and being informative.

Also, it is a great example of the kind of subject matter that does not get discussed enough or featured enough in the mainstream press.

* 8 p.m. (Wailes Lounge, Wailes Conference Center) Lecture & slideshow presentation to Sweet Briar and the outside community about Masha Hamilton’s career as a journalist, novelist, and humanitarian, especially her experiences with women in Afghanistan. (One hour with Q & A, book signing in looby to follow.)

Thursday, November 3

* 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. (FAC) Afternoon meeting and discussions with Salt Block business students on entrepreneurial non-profit business management and their work for the Afghan Women’s Writing Project

Friday, November 4

* 8 p.m. (Murchison Lane Auditorium, Babcock Fine Arts Center.) “Out of Silence” reading/performance by Sweet Briar theatre students (Note: An image of Lalla Essaydi’s photograph Les Femmes du Maroc #17, 200, which is in the College’s permanent collection, could be projected on stage before and after the performance.)

* 9:30 p.m. Reception to follow the performance in the lobby of the Babcock Fine Arts Center.

Former managing editor of the New York Times Jill Abramson has just taken over as editor-in-chief of the New York Times, becoming the first woman to hold the post in the history of the venerable paper. Check out this excerpt of a profile of Abramson in this week’s New Yorker:

Once, it was preposterous to think that a woman could become the editor of the Times. When Eileen Shanahan, who went on to become a well-respected economics reporter, arrived for an interview with Clifton Daniel, the managing editor, in 1962, she hid her desire to become an editor. “All I ever want is to be a reporter on the best newspaper in the world,” she told him.

“That’s good,” Daniel responded, as Shanahan told the story, “because I can assure you no woman will ever be an editor at the New York Times.”

Four decades ago, women and minorities were second-class citizens at the paper. According to Nan Robertson’s book “The Girls in the Balcony: Women, Men, and the New York Times,” only forty of the Times’ four hundred and twenty-five reporters were women, and this included not a single national correspondent. There were no female photographers, columnists, or editorial-board members. Not a single black journalist rose above the position of reporter.
In the late nineteen-seventies, after facing multiple lawsuits alleging discrimination against women and minorities, the company became more aggressive in promoting and recruiting staffers who weren’t white men. By 2010, forty-one per cent of the editors and supervisors were women; just under twenty per cent of all employees were minorities; and thirteen per cent of supervisory positions were held by minorities.

This June, the paper’s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., announced the appointment of Abramson and of Dean Baquet, who is black, as the new managing editor. Many who gathered in the newsroom that day were thinking of this history. Not a few women cried. Susan Chira, an assistant managing editor, says that she kept thinking that when she joined the Times, in 1981, many Times women were “sad, bitter, angry people who were talented but who had been thwarted.” Editors openly propositioned young women. “I can’t believe how far we’ve come. To see Jill take the mantle, I felt tingling. You have to praise and savor when a woman can earn it through merit. No tokenism here. Jill studied for this job. She earned it.”

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Management at San Francisco-based Salon Media has agreed to start talks on a first union contract with its workers, it was disclosed Saturday. “Salon Media has agreed to recognize the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) as the collective bargaining representative of its editorial staff, whose decision to unionize was unanimous,” the union said in […]

New York Review of Books Richard Bernstein continued his beef with the New York Times’ nail salon exposé and says the editor’s response was late and insufficient. Bernstein’s article, published on the New York Review of Books website on Friday, came in response to the letter issued by New York Times editors earlier this week. […]

American Journalism Review will cease operation after almost 38 years of publication. The announcement was made on the publication’s website Friday evening. The news comes exactly two years after it ceased the production of its print edition. The magazine was published by Phillip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. “Over many decades, […]

Happy Friday! Here’s some weekend reading (if you just can’t get enough of journalism, writing or the media,) gathered from good stuff published on Medium this week and last. Thanks to Katie Hawkins-Gaar and Vidisha Priyanka for helping to curate. ‘Twelve Step Program’ for Becoming An Investigative Reporter Brock Meeks delivers on the promise of […]

Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler speaks during an NFL football training camp media availability at Olivet Nazarene University, Wednesday, July 29, 2015, in Bourbonnais, Ill. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) Tom Brady destroyed his cell phone. Now the Chicago Bears apparently would like beat reporters to self-destruct or otherwise disappear. The team has released new coverage […]